Gods in Color

Archer from the western pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on Aigina; reconstruction, color variant A; as exhibited in Athens

Juxtaposition of the colored reconstruction and the weathered original of a bronze head in the Munich exhibition

Gods in Color (original title in German: Bunte Götter – Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur, painted gods - the polychromy of ancient sculpture) is a travelling exhibition of varying format and extent that has been shown in multiple cities worldwide. Its subject is ancient polychromy, i.e. the original, brightly painted, appearance of ancient sculpture and architecture.

Contents

The Greek goddess Artemis; color reconstruction of a first century AD statue found in Pompeii, an imitation of Greek statues of the sixth century BC. Reconstructed using analysis of trace pigments.

The exhibition is based on the result of research on ancient polychromy, conducted especially by the Classical archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann since the early 1980s, based on earlier works by Volkmar von Graeve. Working together with Raimund Wünsche, the director of the Glyptothek at Munich, Brinkmann developed the concept for the exhibition, culminating in the original Munich show in 2003. It displayed copies of ancient sculpture in their reconstructed painted appearance that had been produced during his studies, as well as new reconstructions created especially for the exhibition, in conjunction with the originals or comparable ancient sculptures. Soon, it began to travel to other cities in Germany and beyond.

Since 2007, the exhibition and underlying research receive support from a foundation created by the government of Bavaria, as well as private donations. After the original German catalogue produced for the 2003 Munich exhibition, new editions were issued for later showings, most recently for the 2010 one in Berlin. An English catalogue was published for the 2008 showing in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University. In 2007 the Colored Gods formed part of the exhibition Color of Life – Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, with contributions in the respective catalogue.

Roberta Panzanelli, Eike Schmidt, Kenneth Lapatin (eds.): The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 2008. ISBN0-892369-18-3 [Catalogue for the L.A. exhibition, including sections on the Gods in Color exhibit]